Soulforce: Focus on the Facts

James Dobson and his colleagues have consistently misrepresented LGBT families and individuals as dangerous, sinful, and undeserving of equal protection under the law.

These dehumanizing portrayals are often bolstered by misleading references to social science research. In recent months, several social scientists including Dr. Carol Gilligan of New York University and Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale have publicly rebuked Dobson for mischaracterizing their research conclusions.

Soulforce is in the midst of an ongoing campaign called “Focus on the Facts,” coincided with Focus on the Family’s summit on orphan care. Although summit materials speak of “unity in the Body of Christ for the sake of the orphan,” the organization’s politics on adoption and foster care have historically been more divisive than uniting. Most recently, in his April 19 broadcast, Dobson urged Colorado citizens to pressure the governor to veto HB 1330, the Second Parent Adoption Bill.

Focus on the Facts calls on Dobson to take a step toward reconciliation with the LGBT community by ceasing his misleading statements about social science research on LGBT families.

The group aims to intervene in Dobson and Focus on the Family’s representations of lesbian and gay families through an ongoing campaign of civil disobedience modeled on Gandhi’s nonviolent “Satyagraha” movement.

In the words of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi “believed in the efficacy of pitting the soul force of the Satyagraha against the brute force of the oppressor and in effect converting the oppressor to the right and moral point.”